That's All: Sporting twits tweet away

By: D'Arcy Waldegrave | Tuesday, August 28, 2012 5:52 PM

So Dan Carter has finally joined Twitter. He’d racked up over 6000 followers by the time I’d written this, making for a rather successful debut on the micro-blog site.

Some folk here at the office can’t quite fathom why Dan Carter’s dip into Twitter has generated a story on the news website Stuff. They are also equally perplexed as to the media interest at Jesse Ryder’s tweets about his gambling. It’s pretty simple really: Twitter is the future and a great source for media outlets globally. Easy column inches. Quotes directly from the stars themselves. Readymade stories. Very little work involved. Ironic really that they should report on it, because to a small degree Twitter is taking their place in the grand scheme.

The traditional media are slowly being cut out of the picture now that players can directly converse with their fan base. Organisations can bypass the middle media man by releasing information directly to their followers. It’s a very focused form of direct marketing. From an individual’s point of view it’s also a terrific way of setting the record straight. No more misquotes or putting words in people’s mouths. You really want to know what’s happening in the life of a player? Find out directly from them, not by the second-hand musings of a journo.

In saying that, you’d have to be pretty keen, and with a lot of spare time, if you want to follow every sport and athlete that’s dear to you. So let the traditional media do it for you. If a player tweets something worthwhile, it’ll end up spread all over the papers and websites anyway.

But if you do follow, be prepared to be underwhelmed. Just because they’re good at sport, doesn’t mean they have an interesting turn of phrase. More than likely you’ll find out their eating habits or what shit they’re watching on TV.

Twits.

That’s all.

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